


I'm not drowning fast enough

by adjourn



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Psychopaths, Angst, BAMF Stiles, Dark, Dark Stiles, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Unhealthy Relationships, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 11:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2691560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adjourn/pseuds/adjourn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Derek has always known, on some level. And he doesn't care at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm not drowning fast enough

**Author's Note:**

> Teen Wolf (mostly Sterek) took over my life. Like a parasite. And I really, really love Dark!Stiles, so this Psychopath!Stiles AU was born. Big thanks to [coatsandjumpers](http://archiveofourown.org/users/coatsandjumpers) for being an enabler, basically.  
> Hope you enjoy! 
> 
> (Title from Reptilia by The Strokes)

Stiles is standing over Jennifer Blake's dismembered body, bone saw in hand. There's small bundles of mistletoe arranged around the Nemeton; white powder forms intricate lines and symbols on the ground. The smell of ozone and power permeates the air, overwhelming.

"I thought you were at pack dinner," Stiles says.

.

When he first meets Stiles, Derek is fourteen and there's a little kid standing in the woods with a dead cat in his hands.

"What are you doing?" Derek demands, stepping out from behind a cluster of trees.

The kid flails, drops the cat and retreats two steps, panicked and jolting with the force of it. He looks up at Derek with impossibly wide eyes, a warm shade of copper that turns amber in the sunlight. The long lashes and shy pink of his cheeks throw Derek off for a moment. He looks terrifically innocent, almost helpless, a deer in the headlights.

"I—sorry," the kid stammers. He drops his gaze to the leafy floor. "I just heard that Ms. Jensen lost her kitty, so I came out to look for it. I know I'm not supposed to be out here."

The sweetness is overdone; everything he says is a blatant lie, and the stutters in his heartbeat ground Derek. He frowns, but doesn't call the kid out on it. Derek's fourteen and in high school and doesn't really care enough to find the truth of what the hell the little boy is doing out in the woods.

"Well, you found the cat. Now take it and go," Derek says curtly.

Something shifts in the kid's expression, a brief flash of emotion in his bright eyes, but it's swept away before Derek can really register it. Then, the kid hastens to obey, scooping up the dead cat and babbling apologies. Derek watches the stained soles of his dirty sneakers as he scampers off.

(Derek doesn't forget that the encounter ever happens, but it's not something he really thinks about. When he occasionally catches the scent of blood in the woods, traces it and finds strangled rabbits half-hidden in the underbrush, he never connects it with the wide-eyed kid and his dead cat. And why would he bother looking into it, after all? They're just rabbits.)

.

Stiles is strong now. He can fill a man's lungs with water and drown him from the inside out. He can make someone's blood flow in reverse, pump backwards slow enough for them to suffer. He can sketch runes into the side of a building and make it a safe haven—or a burial ground.

"I can protect the pack," Stiles says.

He's helped kill seven innocent people.

"She was the bad guy," Stiles says.

Not him. Never him.

Derek wants to believe it.

.

It's been eight years and Derek's gotten most of his own family killed. The smell of blood and pain is so deeply entrenched in the woods that he barely notices it coming from the teenager with a buzzcut and big, pretty eyes.

"This is private property," Derek says.

They're looking for an inhaler, Buzzcut says nervously. Sorry, sorry, we'll be on our way, he babbles, skittish and twitchy. Afraid.

His heartbeat never once changes.

Derek tosses the inhaler at them. The boy with the crooked jaw leaves first, and his friend follows after a brief pause, during which he looks at Derek and smiles nervously. There's something inherently off about it.

But Laura's missing. He doesn't have time to think about suspicious teenagers, even ones that seem faintly familiar and smell like misfortune.

.

"Who else?"

Stiles blinks at him, surprised. But he doesn't bother playing dumb. "What makes you think there have been others?"

Derek shakes his head. "Who else?" I won't be mad, Derek thinks he should say.

He doesn't say it. He's afraid it might come out as the truth.

"Alright, sourwolf," Stiles sighs. He laughs, tosses the bone saw carelessly aside and puts his hands up in mock-surrender. He doesn't move any differently, limbs still a little too loose, body swaying; it's still Stiles, through and through. And that's the worst part.

"You caught me."

.

Derek learns the kid's name: Stiles Stilinski. For the first time in months, he almost laughs.

The actual Stiles makes him want to laugh, too. The kid's funny—talks too much and rolls his eyes and jostles his leg because he can't sit still, jokes sharp on his tongue and sarcasm spilling from every movement of his body. The kid's funny, and irritated, and smells sharply of resentment and attraction around Derek.

But he's never afraid.

Derek growls and threatens to rip his throat out, slams him into walls and fists his claws in Stiles' shirt, but the kid's heartbeat stays steady, eyes lit up like a challenge. He makes Derek feel things that he doesn't want to. The actual Stiles makes Derek want to snarl.

"Your friend. Stiles," Derek says after cornering Scott in the locker room.

"What about him?" Scott asks carefully. He looks suspiciously at Derek, pausing before he tugs on his lacrosse jersey.

Derek doesn't know what to say, how to word it. He's never been the best communicator, so what comes out is: "Is he normal?"

Scott glares at him. "Just because he has ADHD doesn't mean he's a freak. Dick."

Then he storms away, leaves Derek with a convenient excuse for Stiles' heartbeat, for the smell of chemicals caught in his skin.

.

"What are you going to with me?" Stiles asks. His heart's pumping fast now—excited. He has the same look as the night they lit Peter on fire.

.

Derek's backed into a corner, trapped between hunters and a rampaging Alpha. It's like his entire life has led to this point in the worst way possible, all of his mistakes caught up and ready to bury him six feet under.

And then comes Stiles. The kid who's desperately tried to save everyone, who Derek trusts without even really meaning to, who Derek might want to save most of all.

The kid who smells cold and unbalanced like Peter—because of his ADHD.

Stiles' eyes are electric when he throws the Molotov, and they flash like lightning when the flames burst in the cool night air. An incredible roar tears from Peter, like an animal clawing its way out of his chest, and then there's chaos in motion and Derek is ripping out his uncle's throat and he's too overwhelmed by the rush of power and guilt flooding his senses to worry about Stiles' too-wide grin.

.

"Do I get a trial? Will you present them with all the evidence, maybe give a little speech? 'Honorable judge and jury members, this young man is a _murderer_.' C'mon, dude. She was the one killing them. I barely even helped."

Derek ignores him, so Stiles huffs and kicks his feet up on the dashboard.

"Don't do that," Derek snaps.

"What are you going to do about it?" Stiles challenges. Derek's gaze flickers over just in time to see Stiles lick his lips in anticipation. His stomach flutters at the sight.

Stiles takes his feet off, but it isn't a surrender. "You don't have to tell them, Derek. Not all the gory details. I killed Jennifer because she attacked me first, and somehow absorbed her power. Or maybe we killed her together; that seems more believable." Stiles places his hand on Derek's thigh, warm and reassuring. "I'll take down the Alpha pack, and everything will be great. We'll be _safe_ , Derek. Because I did this."

Behind them, the nemeton is devoid of any evidence. Stiles had turned everything to dirt with a wave of his hand.

"God, this is so much easier," Stiles had muttered.

Easier than what, Derek didn't need to wonder.

.

He bites Isaac because the kid is hurt and desperate. He bites Erica because she's vulnerable and angry. He bites Boyd because he's silent and alone.

He sneaks into Stiles' room at night and kisses him until they're both flushed and panting. He pins Stiles to the wall of the warehouse and mouths at his neck when the betas aren't there. He cages Stiles with his arms in the Camaro and nips at his jaw as the moon pulses bright above them.

He never bites, but he loves the way Stiles' heart races when Derek's lips are on his skin.

.

"Where are they?" Derek asks.

Stiles perks up immediately, squeezes Derek's thigh. A hopeful expression slots into place. "The Alpha pack?"

Derek grits his teeth. "Yes."

Now this— _this_ is a surrender.

.

Blood and bleach, Isaac says hesitantly. And they never found the body of the cashier who disappeared.

"It was the kanima," Derek says firmly.

But he's always wondered, too, about the alarming scent of spilt blood that clings to Stiles. He can't find an explanation that he likes, an explanation that doesn't point to Stiles as something Derek doesn't want to think about, so he confronts Stiles head-on.

He doesn't like the real explanation, either.

"It just, it makes me feel real," Stiles breathes as Derek traces the thin scars on his legs, his hips, his forearms. "I don't want to kill myself. I just want to live."

Derek wraps his arms around Stiles and holds him through the night, listens to the steady thump of his heart, unwavering. He doesn't know how to fix it, how to fix anything. 

"Don't worry," Stiles says. "It's fine."

(And it _is_ fine. Because the scent of Stiles' blood covers up all the others.)

.

They interrupt dinner. The pack, sans Peter, stares at them, at Stiles' blood-soaked clothes and the look of resignation on Derek's face. Stiles doesn't wait for Derek's permission; he just lies.

_She kidnapped me and brought me to the nemeton._ Lie.

_I talked just enough to distract her while I texted Derek from my pocket._ Lie.

_Derek weakened her._ Lie.

_I slit her throat._ That one might be the truth, if the manic glint in Stiles' eyes is any indication.

_I don't know what happened, but I absorbed her power. I can...I can feel it. I think we can take on the Alpha pack, now that I'm, well._

"Am I a monster now, Scott?" Stiles chokes. "I don't want to be like her."

"It's okay, Stiles," Scott says soothingly. He reels Stiles in for a tight hug. "You're okay, man. She was evil, Stiles. She killed so many people. You did what was right."

Stiles' heartbeat is steady the whole way through. Derek wonders what else he's lied about, wonders how no one ever noticed. Or—they had. And he knows what happened to the people who did.

.

Gerard Argent has been missing for three weeks. Jackson for a little longer.

The most common assumption is that Gerard has whisked Jackson away to use him for his own nefarious purposes, since he's presumably the master of the kanima now. Derek's not entirely sure he believes it, but he really can't imagine what else could have happened.

He's doing patrol in the preserve when he stumbles across the faint scent of death and wolfsbane. He follows it deeper and deeper until he comes across a cropping of boulders and finds Gerard's bloody corpse, ripped to pieces, hidden among the rocks and smelling strongly of Jackson.

Derek reports it to the pack, and they spend two days tearing apart the woods looking for the kid. They find nothing. Stiles reports Gerard's body to his father, who questions what the hell Stiles was doing in the woods, and he protests, "I was just on a run. No need to get so suspicious, jeez." Derek listens to the conversation from Stiles' bedroom, and thinks that Stiles is one hell of a liar.

Gerard's death is dismissed as an animal attack. The Argents have a funeral that Stiles and Scott attend, to support Allison.

"I'm not really that broken up about it," Stiles says, resting his head on Derek's chest. "I might be sort of glad he's dead? He was a threat, you know? Him and the kanima."

The kanima. Jackson. Another tragedy that Derek created.

"We're probably all safer now," Stiles says, a bit gleefully. Derek rubs circles into his hip and doesn't think about it.

.

Stiles sets up a scrying spell using a glass cup, a rune array drawn in chalk on a piece of cardboard, and Boyd's blood.

"You've been in close contact with them," Stiles explains. Boyd flinches sharply when Stiles approaches. Derek notices.

Stiles doesn't have to look anything up, jumps straight in like he's been studying the spell for ages. Derek figures he probably has. Stiles, he's learned, is always prepared, always has a plan. They're in the middle of one right now.

The misty image that forms is somehow unsurprising to Derek. Of course the Alphas would be hiding out there. Beginning to end; it's come full circle.

"The distillery," Derek says, and they all spring into action.

Plans are made, and backup plans, and another contingency plan just to make sure. Derek calls Peter, albeit reluctantly, because they need all the help they can get. Before they leave, Stiles cups Derek's face with his bloodstained hands and kisses him.

"I love you," Stiles whispers, his breath ghosting over Derek's lips. "I'm sorry."

At least he knows the second part is a lie.

.

Boyd and Erica vanish. He's afraid it's going to turn out like Jackson, that they're going to be dust in the wind, but then Peter starts talking about an Alpha pack and Deaton says, "Deucalion" and suddenly the threat is tangible. Derek prefers it like that.

"It's not your fault that the Alpha pack took them, Derek," Stiles tells him. "They were the ones running away all on their own."

Derek nods. He gets that. He just doesn't get why they were running in the first place, who they were running from. 

.

Dark clouds sweep overhead as they approach the building. Stiles is drumming his fingers on the car door, tapping his foot incessantly; he's restless, exhilirated, and the scent of ozone radiating from him makes Derek feel slightly sick.

"This is gonna be good," Stiles says. His voice is high and slightly hysterical. Derek would mistake it as a side effect of fear if he didn't know better.

The rumble of the storm overhead provides cover for their approach. The heavy deluge and bright bursts of lightning mask their smell. Derek's confident that they'll take the Alphas by surprise, giving them a much-needed advantage.

But the battle is startlingly easy—because none of the pack actually participates.

Stiles ignores plans A, B and C and instead locks all of them out of the distillery with a barrier of mountain ash that had actually been a part of plan D, but not quite in the same way.

Derek waits in numb terror, feels Scott's anger and worry rolling off in waves, listens to the frantic beating of Isaac's heart. Peter and Lydia are whispering with each other, the first time they've spoken in months beyond barbed insults.

"Derek knows," Lydia says, just loudly enough for him to hear.

Peter sends a careless smirk his way. "Took him long enough."

Derek thinks they might not be as flippant about it as they seem, though. Lydia, certainly, is somewhat fearful around Stiles. Derek now recalls smelling it on her at times: sour and covered up by perfume. And maybe Peter is glad that he's found someone worse than him, someone who makes him look sane.

It's been over half an hour. Derek wonders if Erica and Boyd might look a bit hopeful. They must know, too. They had to have run away for a reason. He wonders what Stiles did to them, what he said he would do. The same as he did to Jackson, maybe—make them disappear into the night, leaving only the faint scent of bleach on Stiles' clothes as proof they ever existed. Or maybe what he did to Gerard: tear them apart like an animal and leave their corpses to rot in the woods. Maybe the seven he helped Jennifer kill, spilling their blood across the nemeton and lapping up their power. Maybe like all the others, the disappearances that happened to coincide with Peter's rampage and the kanima's killing spree: strangled, sliced, buried and relished.

Another threat eliminated. Another plan completed. Another urge satisfied.

.

"I'm flunking English," Stiles grumbles, glaring balefully at _The Grapes of Wrath_.

Derek would offer to tutor him, but he was pretty awful at English back in high school, too. He got a C second semester of junior year because he couldn't bring himself to care about Gatsby and the stupid, symbolic green light. He says as much to Stiles, who laughs and presses a kiss to his cheekbone.

"I guess we don't care as much because our goddamn lives are already novels," Stiles says. "A cheesy romance one, probably. The bloody but heartwarming tale of a teenager and his brooding werewolf love interest."

"I think I brood a little less now," Derek says, and then he leans over and pushes Stiles down onto the bed because he'll never get enough of kissing Stiles, of running his hands all over Stiles' smooth skin and of hearing the small, breathy noises he makes when Derek sucks bruises into his hipbones. Derek gets lost in the sensation, in the sound of Stiles' rapid heartbeat and the curve of his mouth.

That's how the sheriff finds them—shirtless and making out on Stiles' bed. Derek didn't even hear him come in.

"Thank you, werewolf senses," Stiles mocks, after the Sheriff leaves them to get dressed and come downstairs _immediately_.

"It's not my fault you're so," Derek falters. Captivating? God, it's embarrassing how into Stiles he is. Embarrassing. Hopeless. Concerning.

"Unbelievably sexy?" suggests Stiles, waggling his eyebrows, and then jogs down the stairs before Derek can tell him, fondly, to shut up.

Sheriff Stilinski is waiting for them at the dining table, hands folded neatly in front of him.

"Sit," he says, and they do.

"Stiles is seventeen," the Sheriff says to Derek.

"We've never had sex," Stiles protests quickly. His cheeks are slightly pink, and Derek actually senses the lie this time, the jump in Stiles' pulse.

The sheriff ignores him. "You're twenty-three, aren't you?" Derek wonders how he knows. Then he realizes that the Sheriff probably read his file when he got arrested. "That's a bit old to be fooling around with a high school student."

"We aren't fooling around," Derek says tightly. "I care about Stiles. A lot. And I know it doesn't look—great, but I would never hurt him."

Sheriff Stilinski doesn't forbid them from seeing each other, but he establishes that Derek has to use the front door and Stiles has to text him if he's going to see Derek. They aren't unreasonable requests. Derek gets it; he's a possible danger to Stiles, a man with a dark scowl and leather jacket who's been accused of murder.

The sheriff sends Stiles upstairs so he can speak to Derek alone. He thinks it'll be a slew of stern words, a deliberate mention of his gun, an "if you hurt him, I'll kill you."

"Do you know what you're doing?" the sheriff asks instead. It feels more like a warning, cautioning Derek, than a threat. He wonders if he should lie.

"Yes," Derek says.

He's starting to get a sense of what the sheriff is warning him against, and he doesn't care.

.

Stiles emerges from the distillery after an hour, and the overwhelming stench of burnt flesh and viscera follows him out. He's bloody and mauled and limping, but has a grin so wide his face must hurt from it. Scott hugs him, yells at him, stares at him, concerned and shocked and unusually pale from it, before him and Isaac go to investigate the building. Derek hears them retching shortly after; they must have been the only ones who didn't know. They know now.

Derek wraps himself around Stiles when Scott has finally left him alone, buries his nose into Stiles' neck and inhales deeply. He takes in the scent of blood and death and chemicals and feels like he's whole. He kisses Stiles and tastes the madness that he's ignored this whole time. It's oddly liberating, even though Derek knows he just stepped willingly into the final trap, the last stage of Stiles' plan.

"Do you know how strong I am now?" Stiles says. Derek can't tell if his voice is resonating with power or pure delight. "Five Alpha sacrifices. You'll never be in danger again—because you have me. You'll always have me, Derek. I'll protect you. I'll protect us all."

You're all mine, is what Stiles is saying. You're all mine, forever. I'll keep you and save you, even if I have to kill you to do it.

"I know, Stiles," says Derek, and he kisses Stiles before he can say anymore.

"I love you," says Derek, and he wishes it were a lie.

.

Stiles is getting help from his English teacher. That's why he smells so strongly of her, Derek reasons.

But he can't reason away the alarming contents of a toolkit he finds in the Jeep, and the blood-soaked clothes he sees Stiles burning one night, and the suspicious timing of Stiles' tutoring sessions paired with the disappearances of seven different people.

So he watches Stiles get into Jennifer's car after school, shadows them until they park in the Preserve and begin walking. Then he waits. He waits for a solid two hours because something tells him to. Because Derek has always known, on some level. And he doesn't care at all.

Once he smells ozone, Derek follows the path that the scent has left, and it leads him to the nemeton—to Stiles standing over Jennifer's dismembered body, to Stiles reeking of power and insanity. Derek feels like he should be more shocked.

"I thought you were at pack dinner," Stiles says.

The beginning; the end. It's come full circle.

**Author's Note:**

> Visit me on [tumblr](http://douchewolf.tumblr.com/)? :D


End file.
